


Deviation #7

by JayBarou



Series: Things that could have been Different in Endgame [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, ClinTasha if you squint, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18662431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayBarou/pseuds/JayBarou
Summary: The one where a soul and a life don't equate.





	Deviation #7

**Author's Note:**

> or The one with the cliff  
> or The one where Natasha lives

 

They stood next to the cliff.

“Wait, Clint, let me do this,” she rose a hand to keep him from going further.

“If anyone should die, it should be me.”

“Who said anything about dying?” That shocked him enough to stop with the self-sacrifice discourse.

She walked calmly to the edge with a distrustful Clint following behind her. He was absolutely right; if this didn’t work, she was hoping she’d be fast enough to jump before him. But that was thinking too far ahead.

She reached behind her own neck, keeping an eye both on the red specter and on Clint so neither would do something stupid. Natasha didn’t trust the specter, and she knew Clint far too well, killing spree and all. 

“Until you prove that giving up my soul is synonym with losing my life, I’m going to assume your vague mysterious way of talking to mean that there is another way. Am I right?”

The specter floated closer to them, but he didn’t say anything.

“You never said ‘a life for a soul’, you said ‘a soul for a soul’. And that means the stone is somehow a soul, but it is not alive, so there must be some loophole. I’m willing to try before being more… drastic.”

She unclasped her arrow pendant and threw it over the cliff. It grew progressively smaller, so small that it disappeared to the naked eye. 

“That pendant means a lot to me. It has represented for the last years my family, my best memories and the anchor that kept me from drifting. “

“A pendant is not a soul,” the thing with the red skull said the words, but it didn't look like he was too sure.

“A life is not a soul either. And as far as I am aware Thanos didn’t give up his life, only his best tool. I can throw my best tool too.” She worked the buckle of her belt and threw it too, with her widow bites and all her other gadgets. “Those mean a lot to me too. My protection. The barrier between me and the world. Gone.”

“Nat,” Clint whispered as he contemplated the belt getting smaller. “Stop littering.”

“What else does it require? To bare my soul? Is that what Thanos did? Showing that there was death in his soul? Here is my soul: I don’t mind killing people, but I won’t ever be able to kill someone I love for something this vague again, and lately that includes myself.”

The specter stood there floating, without talking, until Natasha felt like she could hear her things hitting the ground a hundred thousand stories below. 

“I’m not a judge. I’m just a guide.”

There was a flash of orange and Natasha woke up surrounded by light and in the middle of a puddle. She was confused and wondered if there had been a fight and she had lost pieces of her memory. However, Clint was by her side and as she moved to stand she felt the stone in her hand. She wasn’t sure of which of her shots in the dark had hit the bull’s eye. But she was going to take Clint and get out of the planet before the mystic guide or whoever was in charge changed their mind.

**Author's Note:**

> I accept suggestions for more Alternate Endgame ficlets.


End file.
